1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle seat sliding apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, various types of vehicle seat sliding apparatuses are proposed (for example, Japanese Patent No. 3646356, Japanese Patent No. 3449227, Japanese Patent No. 3647502, JP-A-59-2938). These apparatuses each include a lower rail and an upper rail connected to the lower rail so as to be movable with respect to the lower rail. Then, a lock lever adapted to engage the lower rail and selectively restrict the movement of the upper rail with respect to the lower rail is rotatably connected to the upper rail. The upper rail is also provided with an operating lever which is capable of transmitting an operating force to release the movement restriction with respect to the lock lever, and a torsion spring adapted to resiliently hold the operating lever.
Incidentally, the vehicle seat sliding apparatuses in Japanese Patent No. 3646356, Japanese Patent No. 3449227, and Japanese Patent No. 3647502 are all configured to assemble the torsion spring to a lever (lock lever or the like) movable (rotatable) with respect to the upper rail, and hence the assembly work of the torsion spring becomes complicated. Then, a rod-shaped or a pipe-shaped operating lever has a configuration to be connected to the lever including the torsion spring assembled thereto in a state of being engaged with the torsion spring, and hence the assembly work of the operating lever also becomes complicated. In particular, in Japanese Patent No. 3646356 and Japanese Patent No. 3647502, the operating lever is connected so as to rotate integrally with the lock lever and, when the direction of rotation of the operating lever and the direction of rotation of the lock lever differ from each other, for example, an axis of rotation cannot be used commonly, so that the number of components and the number of steps of assembly are increased.